User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes

Description

The intent of this technique is to create lists of related items using
list elements appropriate for their purposes. PDF files containing
lists are normally created or repaired using a tool for authoring PDF.

When markup is used that visually formats items as a list but does
not indicate the list relationship, users may have difficulty navigating
the information. An example of such visual formatting is simply using
line-breaks to separate list items.

Some assistive technologies allow users to navigate from list to list
or item to item. If the lists are not correctly formatted with list
tags, these users will have difficulty understanding the list content.

The easiest way to create lists in PDF content is to format them properly
using list markup in the authoring tool, for example, Microsoft Word
or OpenOffice.org Writer. However, if you do not have access to the
source file and authoring tool, you can use Acrobat Pro's TouchUp Reading
Order tool and the Tags panel.

On the Home ribbon, use the lists tools to create or repair lists
in Word documents. This is the easiest way to ensure that lists are
formatted correctly when they are converted to PDF.

In the image below, the numbered and bullet lists were created using
the list tools. The third list did not use the list tool (see the ribbon)
and the list will not be tagged as list elements when converted to
PDF.

Use the Bullets and Numbering tool to create or repair lists in OpenOffice.org
Writer documents. This is the easiest way to ensure that lists are
formatted correctly when they are converted to PDF.

In the image below, the numbered and bullet lists were created using
the list tools. The third list did not use the list tool (see the toolbar)
and the list will not be tagged as list elements when converted to
PDF.

Example 4: Marking up lists using List structure elements

The following code fragment illustrates code that is typical marking
up a list hierarchy in PDF documents. It uses the simple numbered list
in the previous examples. This is typically accomplished by an authoring
tool.

Related Techniques

Tests

Procedure

Read the PDF document with a screen reader, listening to hear
that list is read correctly when reading the content line-by-line.

Use a tool that is capable of showing lists to open the PDF
document and view the list to check that it is correctly structured.

Inspect the tag tree to verify that the list is structured
according to the PDF specification.

Use a tool that exposes the document through the accessibility
API and verify that the list is correctly structured.

Expected Results

#1 is true

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.